Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 102781 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 514(@200wpm)___ 411(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102781 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 514(@200wpm)___ 411(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
I might’ve guessed he’d have a few dirty pictures of women on his phone, but not a sweet little boy as his background. The man was truly a complete enigma.
Luckily, while staring down at the boy, I caught the time on Bennett’s phone.
Crap.
I needed to get out of here. I quickly set an alarm for two hours from now and went into his settings to turn the volume all the way up and make sure his phone would vibrate at the same time. Then I laid it on the floor, right beside his ear. If that didn’t wake him, nothing would.
I got up and grabbed my luggage, giving the room one last look for anything I might’ve forgotten. Then I navigated around the sleeping man and gently opened the hotel room door. He still hadn’t budged.
I stole one final look at the bulge in his pants.
Well, Bennett Fox, this has been interesting, to say the least. I can’t wait to see how much of it you remember in the office tomorrow.
Chapter 19
* * *
Annalise
At eight a.m., I’d already been in the office for hours.
On my flight home yesterday, I’d typed up a summary of the information I took away from the Star meetings and sent an email to three staff members—two from Wren and one from Foster Burnett—asking them to read over my notes and meet for a brainstorming session first thing this morning.
When I’d gotten to the office at five a.m., Bennett’s door had been shut, although the light was on. After catching up on emails for an hour, I went to get coffee and noticed his door was open and the light was now off. I figured he’d done what he often did—arrived at the office early, did some work, and then went for his morning run after a few hours. We hadn’t had any contact since I’d left him passed out in my hotel room yesterday morning, and even though my curiosity about how he’d handle what had happened was eating at me, I had no time to waste today.
Just as my meeting began, Bennett strolled past the bullpen. He took a step back, catching sight of us inside. His hair was wet, and he held a large Starbucks coffee in his hand.
“What’s going on in here?”
“We’re just getting started on the Star Studios pitch,” I said.
His eyes inventoried the people in the room, and I thought he might be about to question why I’d picked people to work on the campaign with me without discussing it with him first. But instead, when our eyes met, he merely offered a curt nod before walking away.
Me and my handpicked team worked the rest of the morning together. I’d had a dozen loose concepts for Star in mind before we started, and we narrowed my list down to two ideas and then expanded on them, as well as adding two more that the session came up with. Our plan was to spend a little time on our own, each running with all four of the concepts, and see which popped when we met again in a few days.
On my way back to my office, I stopped off at Bennett’s. He had his head down, sketching something.
“Did you make your flight?” I asked.
He leaned back in his chair and tossed his pencil onto his desk. “I did. Luckily I had the wherewithal to set an alarm, I guess.”
Ummm... No, you didn’t.
He continued. “I don’t really remember much about the night after we finished dinner. Did I pass out on your floor after walking you to your room or something?”
“You don’t remember knocking on my door?”
“Apparently not.” His brows furrowed. “Why did I knock?”
“To apologize for the way you acted at dinner.” And tell me why you acted the way you did.
“I don’t usually have more than one or two hard-liquor drinks. I’m more of a beer person.” He grinned. “Hope you didn’t try to take advantage of me.”
Disappointment hit me. He doesn’t remember. I’d known there was a good chance the entire night would be a blackout for him, but I hadn’t expected to feel hurt that he didn’t remember the things he’d said.
But of course, it was better this way. “You got confused which room was yours and passed out when I went to put a sweater on and show you to your room.”
I felt my face start to heat from my lie. Shit.
“Gotta run. Talk to you later.” I abruptly walked away and went to hide in my office with the door locked before he could notice.
Later in the afternoon, I spent some time tweaking Bennett’s Bianchi Winery campaign. The copy he’d written needed work to reflect that the winery was family owned and not part of a large corporate conglomerate—something Matteo took great pride in. Other than that, I changed a few colors on the labels for the new line of rosé that Mom wanted brightened up and replaced the proposed late-night radio air buys with evening slots.